Pamela Nickless called the meeting to order at 3:20 pm and welcomed Senators and
guests.

The
order of business was modified.

III.Student Government Association Report

SGA President
John Noor thanked
the Senate for keeping the two student representatives on the Minority Affairs
Commission.He will see that they attend
the meetings.

Highlights of meeting with President Bowles

Although there
are huge start-up costs, President Bowles supports a rental book policy as it
will be cheaper for students.The Senate
discussed why some faculty may not embrace a rental book policy:it is anti-intellectual (a college textbook
should be read, underlined, written in, and kept as students build a foundation);
there is an ethical issue (books that are bought and sold second-hand and any
rental policy would compromise all the royalties that authors of books are paid);
translations and definitive additions change;students will not receive any supplemental materials that come with many
books; faculty have little flexibility in dropping a book that students dislike.Dr. Padilla announced that a task group
chaired by AVC Whatley
with several faculty will work on this issue.

President Bowles was very open to an alternative funding
mechanism for UNCA and some of our small population schools.UNCA is underfunded at $2,000 per
student.Included in the General
Assembly bill is an extra $1.5 million for UNCA in recurring dollars, but
President Bowles said it will likely not stay recurring.UNCA would receive more funding for graduate
students as opposed to undergraduates but that is not necessarily why a college
would want to add a graduate program.President Bowles did not seem to want to push for graduate programs.

The Governor wants to offer early-college at universities
and community colleges.UNC-G, NC
A&T, and UNC-W will start an early-college next year.Many issues are associated with early-college,
such as safety for 15-17 year olds on a college campus and holding core classes
that will eliminate slots for undergraduates.Dr. Padilla noted that there are no plans to initiate an early- or
middle-college at UNCA.

There is a need to plan tuition in four-year increments so
people can plan financially for college.

At Dr. Nickless’
request, Dr. Padilla summarized the merit system.There are usually two components to an
increase for faculty members each year when funds are available – COLA (cost of
living adjustment) and Merit (performance).Many schools give the majority as COLA and a portion is allotted for
merit.He has an obligation to maintain a
merit system where faculty receive both the symbolic and the financial reward for
accomplishments as reviewed by the Chair, the AVC, and the
Provost.Three people now read every
record.The problem is merit creep –
more and more faculty receiving high merit with increasingly smaller financial
reward.Last fall the Chairs/Program
Directors reviewed how we allocate merit and agreed to a 60/40 split (60% of
each department could be recommended to an AVC as high
merit and 40% as merit).They also retained
the authority to make the recommendations.This model is difficult for smaller departments and not every department
met the 60/40 split.The AVCs and
Chairs discussed those instances and tried to reconcile them to adhere to the
split.Problems will be addressed next
year.

The following points were made during discussion:

60% of a department
can be recommended for high merit including the Chair but the Chair does
not self-recommend.This is a
serious conflict of interest for small departments and is institutional
unfairness.Perhaps AVCs
should recommend 60% of Chairs for high merit to resolve this issue.

High merit is a prestigious award yet the
majority of faculty receive it and there is little difference between
merit and high merit.Is it worth
going through this if the monetary difference is small?

Inconsistent standards were applied between
program areas yet there are disciplinary differences.We should articulate what each category
means by objectifying meaningful criteria.

We need to retain a unified campus and unified
goals in teaching, scholarship, and service.

Put this on the agenda in the fall to get wider
discussion with faculty about their criteria.

Discuss formative evaluation for faculty to
clarify the goals in the three areas.What are we looking for in an excellent teacher?What are we looking for in service and
scholarship?

The Provost awards exceptional merit to faculty
whose substantial contributions impacted the university as a whole.

What do we mean by
contributing largely to the university?Is it making one’s department stronger or is it contributing to ILS
and to the masters program and other callings to strengthen the
university?This discussion will be
very helpful to Chairs, the Provost, and the Deans.

A Merit Task Force could
recommend criteria for use in the process.

Chief Academic Officers Meeting

Highlights of the meeting
follow:

Rob Nelson has been appointed Vice President
for Finance.

The closed search for the Vice President for
Academic Affairs should be settled by mid-May.

The meeting focused on retention, the mission
of the university system, and how the missions of the individual campuses
relate to that mission.

Tax receipts are higher than anticipated.

IV.Executive Committee Report

Pamela
Nickless reported for the Executive Committee.

Faculty
Handbook Editorial Consultant

At the Executive Committee’s
request, Dr. Nickless will serve as editorial consultant on revising the
Faculty Handbook next year.She will
work closely with Ms. Gravely, the Provost, and Dr. Friedenberg.

Evaluating
Administrative Offices

The
Chancellor asked the Executive Committee’s advice on putting into place a
regular review-evaluation of administrative offices.She is hoping to start evaluating administrative
offices by group – not the entire campus – next year.The Chancellor’s interest in this matter contradicts
what Dr. Padilla reported at the last meeting but the misunderstanding arose due
to semantics.In the past we have
evaluated administrative offices.What
the Chancellor views as her prerogative is evaluating the personnel in those
offices.Areas under new leadership or which
are being rearranged, such as Academic and Student Affairs, will not be
evaluated immediately.

V.Faculty Welfare and Development
Committee Report

Don Lisnerski reported for the Faculty Welfare
and Development Committee.

Second Reading

The following
documents were considered for Second Reading:

FWDC 12:Proposal to Eliminate the Academic Support
Services Committee

(Faculty
Handbook 10.4.3)

FWDC 12 passed without dissent and
became Senate Document 4706S.

FWDC 13:Proposal to Establish the Campus Commission on the Allocation of
Student Services Funds as a Standing Committee (Faculty
Handbook 10.4.2)

FWDC 13 passed without dissent and
became Senate Document 4806S.

FWDC 14:Proposal
to Establish the Teaching Awards Committee as a Standing Committee

APC 33:Policy on Disruptive Behavior in the Classroom was considered for
discussion.

(Faculty Handbook 5.2.11 and
8.3.5)

The Senate discussed due process
and ensuring that when a student is withdrawn there is a mechanism for appeal
or to file a grievance.Dr. Wood
suggested that the process should be articulated in the policy.Cathy Mitchell chaired a Task Force which developed this policy.She explained two ways to appeal activities
that occur within the classroom: 1) via the faculty conciliator if students are
disputing a grade, and 2) via the Academic Appeals Board if there is a bigger
dispute with a faculty member.The task
force struggled with the issue of due process versus continued disruption of
the classroom.The department Chair and
the faculty member will be involved.That
way, if there is a faculty member who has a tendency to get upset, the
department Chair could balance that.The
department Chair should also have an idea of what is happening in other
classes. The Task Force wrote process
documents (based on UNC-G’s) that will be approved administratively rather than
through the Senate.Dr. Wood wanted to
make sure that students would know where to go next.Dr. Mitchell stated that the process would
not be in the Catalog but that students would receive a letter from the
Registrar’s Office saying they have been administratively dropped and
explaining their options.APC 33 passed without dissent and became Senate Document 5606S.

APC Approved as Minor Proposals:

APC 43:Changes in the Drama courses Required for Language Arts Middle School
Licensure and English with
Teacher Licensure.

APC 43 passed and became Senate
Document 5706S.

APC 44:Modification of Required Courses Outside the Major for all Environmental
Studies

Concentrations;
Modification to ENVR Concentration Requirements.

APC 44 passed and became Senate
Document 5806S.

APC 45:Modification of Required Courses Outside the Major in IEM Major.

APC 45 passed and became Senate
Document 5906S.

APC 46:Adjusting Degree Requirements in Biology in Response to Changes in
Chemistry.

APC 46 passed and became Senate
Document 6006S.

APC 47:Modification of Required courses outside the Math major in response to
changes in the in
the Chemistry curriculum.

APC 47 passed and became Senate
Document 6106S.

VII.Institutional Development
Committee Report

Bruce Larson reported for the Institutional
Development Committee.

Dr.
Larson thanked the members of IDC for their work this year:Brian Butler, John Wood, Herman Holt, Peg
Downes, and Scott Walters who is leaving the Senate.

Report on Activities

Dr. Larson
distributed IDC’s Thoughts on Additional
Masters Programs and explained that the preliminary criteria are the same
as distributed on April 13th but the preamble is a little
different.A faculty forum will be held
next Thursday at 10:00 am in 223/224 Highsmith; IDC will make a final
presentation of its thoughts and it will be an opportunity to answer questions
and share additional thoughts.IDC is starting
to talk with our peer colleges/universities who have or do not have masters/graduate
programs.

Dr. Nickless thanked all the Senators for
being so helpful the last two years.Dr.
Nallan thanked Dr. Nickless for serving as Senate Chair the last two
years.A round of applause
followed.

IX. New Business

There was no New Business.

X.Adjourn/Reconvene

Dr. Nickless adjourned
the meeting at 4:18pm.She reconvened the
meeting at 4:19pm to receive the final report from the Task Force on Student
Rating of Instruction (SRI).

Task Force on Student Rating of
Instruction (SRI) Final Report

Dr. Mathews reported that three years ago the Senate
assembled the task force from faculty volunteers as a result of concerns raised
by the faculty about our student rating of instruction instrument and protocol.The work began in earnest during fall 2003
following a collection of faculty feedback about SRI.[The entire
report is available at:Final Report of the Task Force on SRI.]

The executive summary follows:

·The UNCA Faculty Handbook
indicates that student rating of instruction (SRI) is used to both help faculty
improve their teaching and to make personnel decisions.

·Change is needed in how
we do SRI.Faculty are interested in
seeing improvements in both the SRI instrument and the overall system of
teaching evaluation.

·We designed and tested a
revised SRI form which appears to offer improvements over our current
form.Additional work is needed to
refine the SRI form; this work should be linked with a campus-wide discussion
on learning objectives and other campus conversations related to our Mission and Guiding Concepts.

·In addition to changing
the SRI form, we recommend additional changes be made.These include a standardization of procedures
for conducting SRI as well as a clarification on how the SRI are used in
collaboration with other measures of teaching performance in order to make
personnel evaluations.

·A continued investigation
into SRI and the general process of how we evaluate teaching at UNCA is
necessary, and should be led by the Faculty Senate in collaboration with the
Center for Teaching and Learning.

Several Senators thanked Dr. Mathews and
members of the Task Force for the progress they made and their hard work.The work needs to continue and it will be
placed on the agenda next year.We need
to have a campus-wide discussion on merit and how we evaluate faculty,
including how we use the SRI form.APC and FWDC will work to move this
forward with Academic Affairs and the Center for Teaching and Learning.

Dr. Nickless adjourned the meeting at 4:43 pm and announced that the organizational
meeting of the 2006-07 Faculty Senate would convene immediately.